Correspondence
Email sent to the contact address for Best of Byward.
The email said: "I’m contacting you in light of our latest investigation which concerns the use of forced labor in China’s fishing and seafood processing industries, and links we’ve discovered between companies engaged in such abuses and your supplier - Pecheries Ocean Fisheries, which distributes Fjord Oceanic brand seafood.
Pecheries Ocean Fisheries is supplied by Shandong Haidu Ocean Products Co. Ltd. and Rongcheng Haibo Seafood Co Ltd, two companies in the Chishan Group. The Chishan Group, including these two processing plants, has received persons from the Xinjiang region of China under the government labor transfer program.
Fishing vessels owned by the Chishan Group have also been observed fishing in North Korean waters in contravention of UN sanctions and fishing illegally in Indonesian waters. The group also owns at least two reefer vessels which have transshipped with dozens of fishing ships tied to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing as well as human rights abuses.
Pecheries Ocean Fisheries has also imported seafood from Yantai Sanko Fisheries Co. Ltd., which has received persons from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China under the government labor transfer program.
The United Nations, human rights organizations and academic experts agree that since 2018, the Chinese government has systematically subjected Xinjiang’s predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities to forced labor across the country via state-sanctioned employment schemes which use coercive methods in worker enrollment. The U.S. has prohibited the importation of goods produced from state-imposed forced labor.
Does your company have any comment to make in light of the above information? Please respond to this email by close of business September 21, 2023, noting all interactions remain fully on the record."